Museum acquires statue, complete with glitter, nail polish

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — The North Carolina Museum of Art has acquired an impressive marble sculpture of the first king of Israel, which had disappeared from public view for 150 years.

The sculpture titled “Saul Under the Influence of Evil” was exhibited in Dublin in 1865 and then wasn’t seen again. Turns out, an English barrister had bought the statue and taken it to his country house in England.

The house later became a boarding school, which sold “Saul” to the museum earlier this year.

The public can watch conservators as they clean the statue in public at the museum, removing things such as glitter stuck in crevices. Curator John Coffey says students liked to dress up the statue as various characters at the holidays, and they left the remnants of those costumes on “Saul.”